


Burning Bright

by Huffleporg



Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket, All the Wrong Questions - Lemony Snicket
Genre: F/M, vfd
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-03
Updated: 2019-03-02
Packaged: 2019-08-16 19:22:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16501253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Huffleporg/pseuds/Huffleporg
Summary: Their penultimate encounter was supposed to be their last, but whenever it came to him, things never went according to plan.





	1. Prologue - Ignoble

He probably hadn’t dropped it off himself. He had always preferred to delegate, even before he had been in a position to order anyone around. But, Kit found it preferable to imagine him at her doorstep, instead of one of the members of his troupe skulking around her home. Despite the betrayals and malfeasance and the few options that the ever deepening schism had given her, Count Olaf was not Kit Snicket’s greatest enemy. At least he hadn’t been. The events of the other night might have changed that. 

Kit stared at the worn cardboard box, unwilling to pick it up from the welcome mat. The familiar insignia stared back at her, drawn over the marking tape that all but held the box together. It could have come from any of her associates who would leave their organization’s mark instead of a return address, but Kit knew it was from him. The certainty pressed hard against her chest. 

Unlike the other times over the years that he had left something for her, Kit was able to stop herself from immediately reaching out. She gripped the door frame, holding herself back. Her years with the Volunteers had given her enough sense to know that little good could come from the box.

But it wasn’t going to go anywhere.

She swallowed, her nails digging into the wood of the frame. Letting it just sit there on the porch would only lead to trouble. She was sure that Olaf didn’t possess the skills to construct a bomb, but when it came to his associates, she found no reason to doubt that at least one was capable of creating something that could cause some harm.

Kit turned on her heel and strode across the entry way and down the hall to her work room. After a few minutes of rummaging around in the mess, she reemerged, armed with her heavy tool box. It had been years since she had need to defuse something in any but the metaphorical sense, but she was confident about her abilities. She had gotten herself out of more dangerous situations than this possible threat. There was no need to call on one of her associates - too many questions would be asked. Whether out loud or not, there were questions that she wanted to avoid at all costs. Not now that she had made sure that bridge was at last truly burned.

With a snap of metallic clasps, Kit opened up the tool box. She took a steadying breath and knelt down before the package. Despite trying to calm herself, she saw her hand tremor as she reached out and began to pull at the yellow tape, tearing at the eye. One of the flaps came away along with the marking tape exposing a folded piece of paper instead of wires.

As she tentatively plucked the paper up out of the box, Kit found herself wishing it had actually been a bomb. Unlike a letter, once the wires were cut, a bomb was scarcely a threat. Opening the paper, Kit immediately recognized the jarring slant of the letters and the peculiar misspellings of words that school children mastered. She had lost count years ago of how many things that bore his handwriting that Dewey had catalogued away. She knew so many villains’ hands, but this was the only one that she ever dreaded seeing. 

For a minute or two, Kit stayed still, fixated on the writing, but finding no meaning in the words. The pull of the past thirty years was stronger than any undertow, and she fought to see past the melancholy and pain to read the letter.

_You’re a liar, Kit Snicket. I shouldn’t be surprised you took to heart what I told you years ago. I’m impressed. Your brother had the reputation for being the acting Snicket, but the other night you gave quite the performance. Bravo. Unfortunately, I don’t believe you. I know you too well. And whoever told you to pretend you’ve been lying all these years should know I’m not going to be fooled as easily as that._  
_Whatever they are trying to do and whatever “noble” justifications you’ve convinced yourself of, they’re not worth it. It’s never worth it. After everything we’ve lost or had taken from us, it’s ridiculous that you can’t see it yourself. Or maybe you do. You’re too clever to haven’t figured it out already._  
_When you come to your senses and realize that I am right, I - reasonable man that I am - will let you apologize. I’ll be waiting.  
_ _To help speed things up, remember these souvenirs of your ignoble motives?_

Reaching the end - an eye instead of a signature - Kit abruptly got to her feet, unceremoniously grabbing the box and slamming the front door behind her. Rather than examine the detris of a life before the Rubicon had been crossed, Kit hurried to her bedroom. Tears that she had been refusing shed since delivering that final betrayal stung her eyes. She could feel the tear’s hot trail down her face, and she hated every one. Each one seemed like a defeat.

Single-mindedly, Kit made for her closet and began to make as much space as was possible in her crowded closet. She set the box down and after piling several sweaters over it, Kit felt it was almost out of sight enough. She shut the closet door as best she could with all the things she had forced in there in the years since she had moved here. 

With a shuddering breath, Kit turned away, wiping her tears away on her sleeve. “You can’t let him win,” she murmured. “Can’t let any of them win.” Forcing those lingering thoughts from her mind, Kit reminded herself that there was no time now to get distraught. What she had to do was far too important, and she was resolved to be strong enough to not let anything distract her from that, not even Olaf. After everything he had done, he deserved only her hate, just as she knew he ought to hate her. But, just as stubbornly as the count clung to the conviction that she was lying, Kit had yet to find the strength to finally extinguish that last lingering spark.


	2. Nobody, Part I

>   
>  _Nearly thirty years ago_   
> 

He hadn’t been raised to question adults. Or at least, that’s what had been impressed upon him at least once a week for as long as he could remember. If a volunteer told him to carry a box across a narrow bridge that looked bound to collapse even with the weight of a child, he was supposed to do as he was instructed. If he was blindfolded and taken on a painfully long car ride, he was expected to not complain about boredom or car sickness or how his ears popped as the journey wore on. He was convinced that he remembered being told not to cry as they had taken him by his ankle, held him down, and pricked the brand into his skin. His mother had informed him that it was impossible for him to remember his initiation or kidnapping - he might as well be talking about his bris - but, the memory stuck like gum that had become embedded in the treds of his athletic shoes.

Despite all the lessons he had been taught and despite all the times he had been told that the reasons weren’t for him to know, he still found himself silently asking why every day he woke up in the dreary place. Weeks ago when he had spent every day waking up to see his roommate’s face across the dorm room, he never would have thought that he would have yearned to be back. The peeling plaster of the ceiling and prickly puce stucco of his dorm room at Prufrock was enough to make him actually crave the sight of Lemony in his sleep mask. 

And if the coded notes Beatrice passed to him during the drudgery of Literature Arts were any indication, she was just as irked as he was by their newest assignment. They had been told to observe, to listen and snoop, but when he had asked “What’s so interesting about a school” he had received some patronizing definition about the word flaneur. So far, the only thing that he and Beatrice had been able to ascertain was just how boring children were. They were lucky, they had decided as they convenied to compare notes under the stage, to be volunteers and not have the misfortune of having to actually attend a place like this. 

Even Prufrock’s gym class was a bore. What was the point in running laps unless there was a volunteer chasing them, just for practice? Why bother to try to climb up a rope if there was no incentive for not just dropping down on the gym mat and laying there? And with the school’s insistence that the boys receive physical education separately from the girls, he didn’t even have Beatrice to talk to. 

He began his laps with his classmates, falling out of pace, watching the teacher and waiting. When the teacher finally looked away to speak with a student who had fallen, he made his move, booking it straight towards the bleachers. If he was lucky it would be the only physical activity he did for the duration of the period. 

Safely hidden in the cool shadows underneath the stands, Olaf let out a soft sigh. He leaned against a support beam, watching as the dust from the field floated in the narrow slits of sunlight that made its way down. Through his back, he felt the rumblings of someone or someones approaching above. He froze. A teacher? The dull gong of the of footsteps grew until he could distinguish two people. The sounds of their footfalls against the heavy metal drowned out their words.

He had been about to head in the opposite direction of the two when he saw it.

V.F.D.

The initials stared back at him, as he watched the path of the girl with the drooping sock walk above and past him.

His associates had always been known for their redundancy, but the presence of another volunteer besides him and Beatrice at the school made him breathless with surprise. Either there was something bigger happening at the school than he and Beatrice had been led to believe, or this was exactly what they supposed to be looking for.

 

The motto of one of his associates came to mind, and he pushed himself from the supporting bar. Urgently, he started off after the two, quickly falling into lock step around them, as the they slowly made their way around the athletic field, his eye cast ever upwards in the hopes of catching sight of the third volunteer at Prufrock.

***

Another assignment before graduation. After the third one, she had begun to wonder whether or not it was personal. Jacques had been off on his apprenticeship for almost two years now. Even the third Denouement brother had received his list of chaperones a couple months ago. Kit could only assume that he had begun his apprenticeship in the weeks since she had been exiled here on recruitment duty. It had been four days since she had sent in her own list of names - six names of bright, curious individuals with a spark in their eye and thirst for setting things right - and so far there had been only silence.

“I would have expected at least one fire by now,” Kit murmured, her voice barely audible to even herself as she walked with her associate. “Or something.”

“They work on their own time,” her associate said. “You know that.”

Kit looked up at her cousin and sighed heavily. “But you’d think if they wanted us to find more scientists, once they had the list…” It was important enough that Gregor had been called away from his apprenticeship to find young minds who could aid their organization. 

“They’re probably waiting for the right moment,” offered Gregor. “I don’t think there’s anything to be worried about.”

“I’m not worried,” Kit said quick enough so that she had to wonder if maybe that was a lie. 

“I think it’s probably-”

A deep bang rattled the metal underneath her. 

Kit froze, staring down underneath the bleachers. Someone was down there. She could see the shadowy outline of someone in the darkness even before she began to kneel down to peer through the metal benches. She could feel Gregor beside her, bending down as well to see just who had been eavesdropping. 

Instead of running, the interloper stood his ground, staring back at her with bright, shining eyes. A boy. Maybe her brother’s age, give or take a year or so. Taller and with a thinner face, one long eyebrow bisecting it. While she couldn’t be entirely sure, there was something in the way he held her gaze that made her wonder if she had seen him before. 

She had been trained how to handle this sort of situation - her education had taught her how to handle all sorts of problems, especially those that one had allowed oneself to be tangled up in. 

“Are you who I think you are?” she asked. 

Hesitation flickered across the boy’s face, but only for a moment. “I’m Nobody! Who are you? Are you - Nobody - too?”

He spoke with such deliberation and familiar cadence that she knew it was no mere coincidence. There was another volunteer at Prufrock, besides herself, Gregor, and the Baudelaire girl. She allowed herself to steal a glance at Gregor, who stared flatly at the boy, as if he had already known to expect him. Kit tried to hide her unease as she replied, “Outis and Nemo.” 

The young volunteer nodded, understanding that they were all Nobodies. 

Finally, Gregor spoke. “Have you been good to your mother?”

The volunteer stepped backwards, offering no answer. For a solid minute, he looked at Gregor, his expression cycling through several emotions before he turned away and bolted beyond where Kit could see.

She straightened up, not even sure which question she ought to begin with. 

Fortunately Gregor spared her the trouble. “That boy’s the son of the Count.” 

A reflexive shiver trembled her, and she wished that the sun had chosen that moment to disappear behind a cloud or for the wind to pick up. Though she knew that she was hardly alone in the feeling the aura of menace the man’s mere title could conjure, she did not want to show it, not even in front of Gregor. “He’s why we’re still here,” she said, her voice dropping to a whisper.

“Insurance,” confirmed Gregor. He stretched as he returned to his full height. “If the Count doesn’t know where his son or the Baudelaire girl are -”

“Then he’s harmless,” finished Kit, the threads of the plan finally in her grasp.

Gregor cricked his neck with a soft pop. “Exactly.” Unceremoniously, he resumed his progress along the stands.

Kit only allowed herself a moment to peer out in the direction the boy must have gone before joining her cousin again.

***

The best place to find a volunteer was the library. Her grandfather had taught her that back when she had been young enough to still be distressed by not being able to locate one of her parents at headquarters. He had taken her to the enormous library, and they had waited. She had read outloud to him several of the Ramona books before Jacob Snicket had turned up, soot stained, exhausted, but smiling.

The Count’s son, however, Kit had quickly discovered was the exception that proved the rule. After a week of casing the library, she knew it was time to give up. The Baudelaire girl visited the building often enough that if the boy was going to patronize the library, he would have gone in with his friend. 

He couldn’t have run off. Even if Gregor had concealed the dual purpose of their task here, she was sure that he would have mentioned if the boy had vanished. He had to be around on campus, somewhere, out of sight, but rarely out of mind. 

_That’s the point_ , the realization struck her as she climbed the stairs to her dorm room. She sat down on the landing heavily, even though she still had several more flights to climb before reaching her floor. The boy had absolutely no intention of being seen, at least, not by his associates. 

Immediately she took off, rushing down the stairs she had just climbed until she reached Gregor’s floor. The closed door to his room revealed a crack of light, with a shadow moving about the room. She pounded on the door. “Gregor.” The shadow stopped. “Open the door.” Nothing. “I know which part of a horse you are,” the teenager hissed. 

Footsteps were her answer, and the door swung open.

Instead of her cousin, a tall thin man stared at her. A familiar tang of stale cigarette smoke and gasoline came from the worn trench coat. Behind him, she could see Gregor sitting calmly at his desk by the open window, observing the reunion. The thick claws of the grappling hook stuck to the window sill, offering an explanation of how the grown man had entered the student doors with the dorm parents none the wiser.

As the man gave her that well-loved smile, Kit felt her voice catch in her throat. 

“I received the signal that there is need for a taxi tonight,” the man said.

Kit stepped inside, and the man closed the door behind her.

“I’m sure you’ve surmised, but we don’t have much time,” continued the man. 

Mutely, Kit nodded. If VFD had sent a taxi, action was required.

Despite his prior statement, the man paused to press a kiss to the top of Kit’s head. He stepped away from her and smiled yet again. “It’s been a while.”

She looked into his hazel eyes, a color he had given to her and Jacques. “Too long, Dad.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for coming back and reading the second chapter of Burning Bright. I believe that this chapter offers a little bit more action than the prologue. I had been hoping to release this chapter sooner, but it became necessary to re-work this chapter a little bit. I'm actually pleased with how it turned out, and I think that the wait was worth it. 
> 
> The exchange between Kit and Olaf quotes from Emily Dickinson's poetry, and references _The Odyssey_. Both Outis and Nemo mean "no one" in Greek and Latin, respectively. 
> 
> Please let me know what you think about this chapter and the story. Comments and kudos are food for authors, and I appreciate them greatly.


	3. Chapter One - Horticulture

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mind the (time) gap!
> 
> There's a leap midway through the chapter of a few weeks. Should be obvious, but in case it's not, don't be shocked.

The first glimpse of the Hotel was a welcomed sight. Less welcoming was the manager who she encountered as she walked to the elevator. Though there was no way that the triplet hadn’t noticed her presence as she walked towards him, he kept his gaze determinedly downward at the ledger, feigning absorption in his task. “Hello, Frank,” Kit said as brightly as her current gloom allowed. 

With Kit’s direct address, he could no longer playact. The manager at the desk looked up, his face unreadable, though the tension in how he stood betrayed irritation. It had been a long time since she had had any trouble telling the identical brothers apart, but had there been any doubt in Kit’s mind, it would have vanished at Frank’s completely expected reaction. “I wasn’t aware this is a sad occasion,” he offered cryptically, his eyes finally locking with hers. 

Kit bit her cheek and sighed. While it was a code she knew well, her anxious mind wondered if perhaps he had heard something. “Not exactly.” This was not volunteer business. It had no longer been possible to stay home, locked up with that box, endlessly calling to her with its siren song. _That way madness lies,_ she had reminded herself every time she had approached the closet, heart pounding, to rest her hand on the handle of the door until the metal turned warm. It was a compulsion that had only grown harder to resist in the 18 hours since the package’s arrival. 

She had needed a safer place than her cottage.

Not interested in facing further scrutiny from Frank, Kit gave a parting nod and strode across the remaining atrium until she reached the door that led to the stairwell. She descended down to the basement and quickly walked past all the rooms that helped with the inner-workings of Hotel Denouement. No one stopped her, only lending further support to the lesson her father had taught her years ago: _walk purposefully, as if you belong, and you’ll be surprised how much you can get away with._

She stopped when she reached room 020 and glanced around furtively, knowing it was better to be vigilant when it came to dealing with their enemies. As she stepped into the storage room, she shut the door behind her. Though it was uncomfortably dark, Kit didn’t reach for the cord to turn on the overhead light, instead she pulled a lighter out of her jacket pocket. 

With a click, Kit illuminated her surroundings enough to navigate through the lawn chairs, empty bed frames, paintings, lampshades, and the other castaways until she reached the large grandfather clock. She held up the flame to shattered clock face, to see if Dewey had left a message for her in the hands. The elegant arrows pointed towards 10:20, exactly where she had expecting they would be. It was a small relief. 

She lifted her thumb from the lighter’s button, and she was once again in darkness. She needed both hands. She undid the latch and pulled at the frame around the glass door. Unlike the various grandfather clocks she had seen over the years, including the ones that she had watched Dewey work on, rather than swinging open to expose the pendulum, cables, and weights, the entire front of the clock lifted up. The weights and chains clanked and protested as she pulled at the door until she could force her shoulders into the gap between the darkness and the box that held the inner workings of the clock.

Finally, with a grunt, she worked the door open properly. She stepped up into the narrow entryway to room 021, and the heavy door did the rest as it pushed her into the room proper. A tit for tat. 

The room was empty, except for a door that did not lead to the hall. Though there was a ‘door’ from the hallways that was supposed to open room 021, the room that shared the call number of archives couldn’t be accessed entered through that door. The day she had designed the mechanism that simulated a stuck door perfectly, she had fought with _him_ over whether it was it was to ‘soothe the savage beast’ or ‘breast.’ His stubborn insistence that it was ‘breast’ had clung to her as she had clanged her way through the project, making enough noise to draw a ‘shush’ from the sub-sub-librarian. Before she had gone back home, she had asked to borrow Dewey’s copy of Congreve to prove her point. To her dismay, she saw printed on the page the unmistakable proof that the Count was right. 

Lost in the past, Kit barely took notice of anything as she descended down the cool tunnel. It was only when she came to the hatch did she realize just how far back she had allowed herself to wander. 

_He knew he was right,_ she told herself as she climbed up the rungs in the tunnel’s wall. _And what’s the point in feeling guilty about never telling him so now?_ Kit could have listed the dozens of other things that she had done that should have nagged at her more than a poem, but instead, she turned the hatch’s wheel and forced the trapdoor up. 

The underwater replica of the hotel’s lobby offered a dissociative familiarity among the distorted shapes and darker hues that mirrored what was above. Nearly mirrored. As she approached the Denouement brother at the desk, this time, the man looked up, confusion and surprise widening his eyes. 

“Kit!” Dewey set his pen down and walked around the desk to meet her. “I wasn’t expecting you for at least…” He blinked and looked away quickly, back towards the atlas he had been annotating. “Usually your trips are longer.”

Still more than an arm’s length away from the sub-sub-librarian, Kit stopped. “I didn’t volunteer for the… the usual assignment,” she explained, glad her voice didn’t waiver. “But, it should be the last one of that kind.” She wished she could hate the flat way she spoke, as if she hadn’t done something truly awful and instead was talking about a trip to the store. 

Dewey stepped forward. Kit could see the words beginning to form on his lips as concern furrowed his eyebrows, but then, he retreated, closing his mouth, proof that the past sixteen years had taught him there were some things even he was better off not knowing. He cleared his throat and said, “You don’t have to be here if you’d rather-”

“No,” interjected Kit. Whatever she had been trying to force away flared for a moment inside her, a sudden burst that brought tears to her eyes. She turned away, trying to focus her mind on the atlas that Dewey had been working on. She blinked hard, closing the distance between her and the desk. She needed a moment to recognize the furthest reaches of the Hinterlands, but the more she stared at the map, the more sure she was that she could look at Dewey again without risking his sympathy. 

“Did Olivia ever get back to you about her collection?” she asked, determinedly ignoring anything else but their work.

“Not exactly…” prefereced Dewey, before catching his associate up on all that she had missed over the past few days.

***  
***

If it had been entirely up to her, she would have just stayed in bed. The grey light that weakly illuminated her room offered little to recommend the day, and the exhaustion that she had been dragging around the past couple weeks only seemed to have doubled overnight. She was sure, however, her present weariness probably owed quite a lot the hours it had taken to feel properly comfortable enough to fall asleep. But, as those hours of the corrosive gnawing in her chest could only be blamed on her own cooking failures rather than something she could feel appropriately sour about, she discounted them as she closed her eyes, blocking out the dreary morning haze.

But there were other plans in store for her, she quickly learned.

As she tried to burrow even further into the darkness under the covers, the telegraph whined a long dash. Reluctantly, Kit poked her head out into the cool air, the better to translate the dots and dashes emanating from the machine in the kitchen. 

_._

She let out a groan and threw the covers off. There were few enough volunteers with the initial K that there was little doubt in her mind that the dispatch was intended for her. Blindly, she grasped around on the bedside table for her commonplace book. She had to squint at the page in order to transcribe the message. 

· · · − −  − · · · ·  · · · − −  · − · − · −  · · · − −  − − · · ·  · · ·   - − − −  · − − ·   
− · · · ·  · · · − − · · · · · · − · − · − − − − − ·   · · ·   - − − −  · − − ·   
− · · 

The transmission ended with another long dash before the line silence fell again. 

_K 363.37 STOP_  
635.9 STOP  
D 

Kit only had the faintest memories of learning how to decipher morse code - sitting in her mother’s lap as she showed her how to spell her name out on the telegraph, asking her father what a strange sequence of dots and dashes meant and seeing him frown hard before he explained it was a question mark. And while she had grown far too familiar with the Dewey Decimal Number for fires and firefighters, the 635.9 call-number gave her pause. 

She retrieved her glasses from the nightstand and crossed the room to her overflowing bookshelf. The pocket sized guide to the Dewey Decimal System was exactly where she had left it months ago when Dewey had sent her a message containing the call-number for mirages (551.565). She thumbed through the small manual her comrade had given her nearly fifteen years ago and easily found the unknown number.

_Garden crops (Horticulture), Flowers and ornamental plants._

“Damn it, Dewey,” she mumbled as returned the book to its place on the shelf. “Some clarity would have been nice.” For a man who claimed he hated the smoke and mirrors of VFD, he was perfectly willing to use similar methods to obscure his own work. 

There had been a fire somewhere were there were flowers and/or ornamental plants. As she walked from the bedroom to the kitchen and turned the kettle on, she searched her mind for any places that could fit that description. There were several gardeners who had offices, but she doubted that there was anything to gain from burning one of them. Similarly she couldn’t think of a reason to set fire to a garden and lawn supply store. Just as the water began to rumble in the kettle, she found it. “Fuck,” she hissed. She gazed out of her window into the gloom, as if she could see his tower through the grey and whatever remained of the Royal Gardens.

***

The sheets no longer smelled like her. With three weeks since the “last” time she had spent the night tangled up with him, her perfume should have faded. But, it had persisted. He could have sworn that it was growing stronger, even, as he fell asleep breathing her in night after night.

This morning, unfortunately, instead of the ghost of Kit to welcome him back to consciousness, nothing but smoke and ashes greeted him. She had always teased him when he had fallen asleep in his clothes, and now he could almost hear her laughter from the bed as he walked over to the wardrobe. ‘What else did you expect? Not even changing your clothes after fleeing the scene of the crime. It’s your own damn fault,’ she would have told him, shaking her head over yet another one of his ‘slovenly displays.’ He mechanically undressed, as he should have done the night before instead of collapsing - smoke and all - onto the bed. He wrapped himself up in a bathrobe and used the mirror to rub the soot off his face.

‘A shower would be better.’

As if he could silence her, he reached out and pulled off all the bedding in one strong tug. The sheets and blankets quickly settled around his feet, and Olaf stared at the stained mattress. 

A distinct thunk from the first floor interrupted his silent debate over whether he wanted to go to the trouble of burning the mattress. 

Fear hit him before his training kicked in. Logic was even slower to find him, but he was already opening the bedroom door and stepping out onto the landing when he remembered that anyone who would choose to break into his home would have been taught the same curriculum as him. 

He crept down the stairs, but with the creaking and groaning each footfall elicited from the staircase, he wasn’t surprised to be joined by the intruder as he reached the final step. 

“Y.,” he said, forcing a toothy smile at the sight of short, thickset man who scowled up at him, a long umbrella tucked up under his arm . “If you had wanted brunch, you should have given me some advanced notice.” 

“It would be lunch now,” the man countered. “And I do not care for oatmeal.”

Olaf allowed his smile to fade by an appropriate degree, as if he was hurt that the older man wasn’t interested in his company. There was no ambiguity as to why his associate was here today. “Really? That late? I could have sworn it was earlier.” At least that held a shred of honesty. He felt a wet thwack as the umbrella struck his bare legs. “Fuck. Y., if you’re that bothered, tell the judges to get me an alarm clock. They owe me for the one they-”

“Do you think?”

“What do I think?” Olaf’s leg had stopped stinging, but the damp spot was now beginning to chill his leg.

“Obviously nothing. You don’t think.” With the umbrella, the villain pointed at the window. “Rain. Olaf. Rain. It’s dark because it is raining.” The tendons in the man’s neck had begun to stick out. “You’re told to set a fire, and you don’t even bother to check the weather report.” 

Olaf took a step back up the stairs, out of reach of the umbrella. “I… It wasn’t raining when I set the fire,” he managed, the implications of his blunder washing over him. “And I still managed to do it.” Despite how difficult it was to make living plants burn, and how terrible most of them had smelled, he had been able to do it long before the wail of sirens sent him and Fernald running. He had seen the vines and leaves shrivel up and burn. He had choked on acrid smoke as he had escaped, satisfied in knowing that the Royal Gardens would be a pile of ash by morning. “The bombs went off without a hitch. Everything caught fire -”

“That’s not the point,” Y. hissed. 

“I got the plant,” Olaf countered through gritted teeth. “That’s the point.” As much as the higher ups liked to keep him in the dark, he knew that there was a reason they had asked him to take the deadly plant from its display. “And I managed to make sure it looked like the infamous Snicket was at it again.” 

The man seemed completely unimpressed. “That was only half the point. Just be glad I got there before anyone else did. I was able to retrieve what we actually needed from the Gardens.”

_What else did you expect?_

He could hear her laughter yet again. She was right - would have been right, he corrected his own thoughts. “And just what do you want me to do with the damned weed?” he snarled.

With a shrug the short man said, “I wouldn’t be too fussed if you made a nice tea from it, myself, but I know the judges would rather figure out some punishment for you on their own. Far be it from us to deprive them of the small joys of life. We do owe them so much.” 

It took all the will power the actor had to allow the other man to smugly stroll out his front door rather than punting the shrimp into his neighbor’s perfectly trimmed hedges. 

The day couldn’t be off to a worse start.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading this chapter! I do hope you enjoyed it and you can start to see where the story is heading... or at least the structure is getting a little bit more clear. Basically, anything in the "present" will be titled "Chapter N+1", while the interludes into the past won't be called chapters. (Does that make any sense?)
> 
> In case you were wondering, because this is a canon fic that does span quite a bit of time, other relationships for Kit and Olaf will be shown/mentioned, but I promise you, those ships are not the focus of the story, nor will there be any smut for them. (I know why you're here, never fret!)
> 
> Finally, before I say "see you next chapter", I would like to make a plea that you let me know if you're enjoying this fic. It doesn't have to be much - a kudos, one word comment, subscription, bookmark - but I would really like to know that there are actually people who are reading this fic and actually following it instead of just clicking on it and nope-ing out. Writing takes energy and time, and feedback from you guys in any way really does help recharge me. 
> 
> Okay, stepping off my writer's soap box. 
> 
> See you next chapter!  
> -Huffleporg

**Author's Note:**

> It's hard to believe I'm actually posting this. I first got the idea for this fic nearly two years ago, and for a very long time, I have sat on it, believing no one would want to read a fic about these two, let alone be willing to put up with a less than typical structure. But, here I am, taking a leap of faith that someone out there wants to read a very strange love story. 
> 
> This story will in the 'present' day take place at the same time as the events in A Series of Unfortunate Events, but the past will be featured prominently as an interlocking (and sometimes achronological) narrative. 
> 
> The TV show, while it might inspire a thing or two here and there, isn't going to have much influence on this story, so if you're expecting a well-kept, sporty Kit Snicket, you've come to the wrong place. I've only got distraught (or soon to be) and dysfunctional heroines for you here. 
> 
> And yes, there will be smut. Dog help me, there shall be smut. I apologize in advance. 
> 
> I hope I haven't scared you off! I'm looking forward to hearing what you think, so don't let the 'kudos' button or comment box be a stranger.  
> -Huffleporg


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